


The Letter

by MusicLurv



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Army Wife, F/F, Happy Ending, MIA - Freeform, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, but it's resolved, i was told this is emotional, side Octavia/Lincoln - Freeform, side Raven/Anya, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 18:20:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8067841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicLurv/pseuds/MusicLurv
Summary: Clarke Griffin expected her wife home soon. Her deployment was supposed to be over and she was going to come home and meet their son for the first time. She wasn't expecting the letter that told her otherwise.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first posted fic on Ao3. So please, any feedback or kudos would be welcomed. If you like the style, stick around for my longer fic that I'm working on. The first chapter of that should be up soon, but I'm trying to finish it before I post anything.

A letter. 

That's all it took for Clarke's world to come crashing down around her. 

A letter delivered by a general who just happened to be on duty that day at the closest army base. He didn't even know her. Didn't know her wife. Didn't know the son and wife that she had left behind to serve her country. 

He didn't know anything. 

But he feigned sympathy as he walked up to her front porch where she sat sketching as their son Aden played with some toys in front of her. 

She planned to send the sketch to Lexa. A drawing of her son so she could see him playing with his toy planes and soldiers, pretending to be fighting alongside his mom. He said he'd be a pilot like her some day. 

But the general walked up, his uniform pristine as if he had never faced a day of war himself. Never had to fear for his own life. And Clarke knew why he was there. She knew what the letter in his hand had said. Other spouses left behind had received them. Had gone through the motions of receiving the letter, preparing the honorary funeral, received their flag as if that was enough of their loved one. As if that eased the pain. 

And here was her letter. Here was the beginning. Lexa was...

She took the letter out of the general's hands, her own trembling as he looked on with mock sympathy. And she ripped it open, Aden playing on behind her none the wiser to how his life was about to change forever. He eyed the general over her shoulder, the man's shiny medals and polished shoes impressive to the young three year old. 

He was only three years old. This couldn't happen to him. It wasn't fair. 

But she read the letter. One word at a time. 

"She's missing," she gasped out, falling to sit on the top step to the porch. 

The general nodded, his eyes pinned on the wall behind Clarke's head. He couldn't even meet her eyes. 

"She's not dead. She's missing."

Again, he nodded. No emotion. No encouragement. 

"She's not dead," Clarke declared with conviction. Lexa couldn't be dead. Her tour was up in a couple of months. She was coming home to meet her son for the first time. To help raise him into the man he was going to become. She was coming home to Clarke and she. wasn't. dead. 

"Ma'am," the general said with a salute before turning on his heel and marching back down the sidewalk to get into his fancy black car and drive off to the next home to deliver news that no one wanted to receive. 

Clarke stood and gathered Aden into her arms. 

"Mommy?" Aden asked, a toy plane hanging from his fingers. 

Clarke brushed his shaggy bangs back from his forehead, seeing glimpses of his mother in his features. He was the perfect mix between the two of them, and he was the miracle that they both loved more than anything else. 

Lexa had to meet him in person. She loved him so much, and he needed to feel that. To know that. 

So Lexa was coming home. 

"How about some ice cream, sweetie? I think we both deserve a treat. What do you think?" She tried to smile for him, but she could feel the wetness in her eyes. She could feel her lower lip trembling. 

She'd be strong for him. 

Aden's face lit up at the promise of his favorite treat, the plane falling from his fingers to the porch. 

The clatter of the plane hitting the hard wood echoed in her ears for the rest of the day and into her dreams that night. 

\-------------

"I got this yesterday," Clarke said, placing the letter she had replaced in its envelope onto the table in front of her mother. They were in Clarke's kitchen, Aden napping in his room upstairs. 

Abby stared at the envelope, her eyes welling with tears. "Is she...?" she began, not able to finish the question. 

Clarke shook her head and waved her hand at the letter. Her mother picked it up and pulled the letter out, reading it over. 

"Oh, honey..." Abby breathed, her hand and the letter falling back onto the table. Her shoulder's drooped as she looked at her daughter with sympathy spilling from her in waves. 

"No," Clarke said, shaking her head. Her brow scrunched in frustration. "She's not dead, Mom. She's not. They're going to find her. They have to."

"Her whole troop, though. Half of them are missing and the other half are--"

"No. Not her. She's alive, just missing. I know it. She-" her voice broke off as she fell into the chair on the other side of the little table they kept in their kitchen. She let her head fall into her hands. "She has to be alive," she gasped out around sobs. Her shoulders shook with them, her entire body collapsing into the chair. She felt arms come around her and thought, for just a moment, that Lexa was home. Lexa was there, comforting her through another failed pregnancy treatment or stupid, meaningless frustration. She was there, and her woodsy, pine scent was lingering around Clarke and comforting her as she hummed against her hair. 

"It'll be okay, Clarke. You're going to be okay," Abby said as she rocked Clarke in her arms. And that's all it took for her fantasy of Lexa being there to come crashing down. 

Lexa wasn't there. She wasn't home. 

But she was alive. And she was coming home. 

\---------

"Let's go out. Get out of this stuffy house for a bit. I'm sure Abby would watch Aden for the night," Raven coerced from beside Clarke on the couch. She was watching Clarke fold clothes as she had almost every day since Clarke got the letter over a month ago. 

Clarke shook her head. "No, I need to be here for him."

"Clarke, he'll be fine," Octavia said from where she was sitting on the floor leaning against the couch. "You need to get out of here sometime." Octavia knew. She knew the worry and the pain of having loved ones deployed during war time. Both her brother, Bellamy, and husband, Lincoln, were deployed overseas currently. At least one of them was able to talk to her every day, though. They were both accounted for. They were okay. 

And Raven knew it too. A bit. Her girlfriend, and Lexa's sister, Anya was a strategist. She stayed on this base, though. She was safe and away from any actual fighting for now. Raven didn't know how it felt, really. She watched Anya break apart at the news, and helped both her and Clarke as much as possible. But she could only grasp so much. 

Neither of them knew what it felt like not knowing if...

No. Lexa was alive. She was fine. 

"He knows something is going on. He's scared."

"Because you are. You're acting different around him. He sees you not going out with friends. Holding him closer," Octavia said. She was observant. Aden was, too. Very. He was such a smart boy. He got that from Lexa. She had always been brilliant. Ever since they were kids when they first met. She always knew the answers to Clarke's curious questions. 

Clarke sighed as she put the last folded shirt into the basket on the floor. Octavia was right, of course. But she couldn't... she couldn't go out and act as if everything was okay. Not when Lexa was...

Lexa was alive. 

"Okay."

Raven perked up, her head whipping to look at her. Clearly neither she nor Octavia had expected her to actually agree. She may have turned them down a little too often recently. 

"Okay?" Raven asked hopefully. She and Octavia watched Clarke skeptically. They were expecting her to say no. To say she wouldn't go out. Wouldn't leave Aden.

"I'll call my mother. As long as she can watch Aden, we can go."

Raven jumped off the couch, eyes eager, as if she worried Clarke would change her mind if she had too long to think it over. "Okay, okay. Call Abby. I'm going to go get my car. O, why don't you help put those clothes up?" she directed before basically sprinting out the front door. 

"Okay?" Octavia asked, placing a hand on Clarke's knee as she looked up at her. Clarke could see the real concern in Octavia's eyes, but she could also see the strength. The determination. They were in this together. They'd be strong together. They were stronger than this. Than this waiting around, hoping to hear something. 

"Okay," Clarke said with a small smile and nod. She shouldn't mourn someone who wasn't dead. 

Lexa was alive. She was coming home. 

\--------------

Six months. 

It had been six months since that letter was delivered. Aden had turned four in that time. He'd started asking questions. He knew his mamma should be home. He missed her letters that she wrote him and the weekly calls on the phone. 

He'd walked in on Clarke crying in her room one night after she'd put him to bed. And, being the sweet boy that took after his mother so much, he climbed into her bed beside her and curled up into her side. Clarke clung to him, pulling him into her chest and breathing him in. He smelled like her. Fresh, clean, innocent. But like the woods. Like the trees that Lexa loved to explore so much. 

And he fell asleep with her. Strong for his mom. Holding his own tears at bay. 

It was that night, holding her son tightly to him, that she decided she had to stop this. She'd hold Lexa in her heart forever. Love her forever. But Aden needed her. Needed her to be strong. She had to stop. 

Lexa was dead. She wasn't coming home. 

\---------------

They had a service. Nothing official. A pyre of sorts. A proper send off for a leader. For a warrior. 

For a memory. 

She held Aden, watching the flames until the finally sputtered out. 

\----------------

Her shoes clacked against the tiles of the cold, empty hall. Her stomach twinged, the wound still not completely healed. She tried to hide the limp as much as possible. 

It had been too long. 

There was so much pain. So much loss. But nothing compared to the thought that she'd left...

No. She'd be fixing that soon. 

So she walked, her bag over her shoulder, down the hall. Down the hall and out the doors into the welcoming sunshine. 

\--------------

Clarke sat on her front porch, the cold air biting at her skin. She held a warm mug of cocoa between her hands, a blank page staring up at her from the sketch pad in her lap. 

Aden played in the thin layer of snow that covered the front lawn. She smiled softly as she watched him throw a handful of snow up in the air just for it to fall back onto his hat-covered head, glee and amazement rippling off him. 

Such joy and freedom. He deserved every happiness. 

Her smile slipped into a frown and she looked down to the empty page. She hadn't drawn anything for almost a year. Not since that day she got the letter. No news, good or bad. Some of the soldiers from the unit were found. Most no longer breathing. Tortured and then thrown away like scraps.

She took in a deep breath, letting it out and watching the steam from her exhale float off into the air. She wished everything else would disappear just as easily. All the pain. All the worry.

But at the same time, she wouldn't want any of it to disappear. She didn't want to let it go. Any of it. It was hers to hold. The last remnants of a lifetime of love.

The lingering silence drew her out of her thoughts. Aden had stopped laughing and playing. She couldn't hear him running around the yard anymore. Didn't hear any shrieks of laughter as the cold snow hit his bare face. 

She looked over to find him standing at the front gate, his hands on two of the posts as he watched someone through it. Whoever it was had kneeled down to talk to him. She could only see the very tip of a hat peak over the top of the fence posts. 

Clarke couldn't remember how many times she had told Aden to not talk to strangers. For his safety and theirs. The boy could talk someone's ear off once he got started. That he had inherited from Clarke. Though she never felt much like taking recently. 

Clarke put her mug down onto the porch floor, the swing she was sitting on swaying slightly as she pushed to her feet. She pulled her jacket more tightly around her as she walked to the porch steps. 

"Aden!" Clarke called from the top of the stairs. When he didn't turn around, she walked toward him. 

It looked like he had pulled his little toy plane out of his pocket to show the stranger, waving it above his head and making sound effects with it. 

"I'm gonna fly high like momma some day. Mommy says that she's super strong and the best soldier out there. We don't know where she is, though. She used to call me on the phone sometimes. But then that stopped and mommy's been sad ever since. And--"

"And I think that's enough, Aden. You've talked this poor person's ear off for long enough. I'm sorry--"

The person on the other side of the fence looked up at Clarke, standing slowly and stiffly. Clarke gasped when she looked at her, her hands going to cover her mouth as tears fell freely. 

"Mommy, what's wrong?" Aden asked, pulling at the hem of Clarke's coat. "Mommy, this nice lady asked about my plane that I was flying. She said she flies planes sometimes."

Clarke reached forward with her left hand, but stopped herself before she touched the woman before her. She must be dreaming. It couldn't be... she was projecting. This wasn't real. She wasn't here. She was...

Clarke's knees gave out, but the gate was pulled open and arms were wrapped around her before she hit the ground. 

"Sshh, baby. It's okay. It's okay, Clarke. I'm home. I'm home, Clarke," Lexa whispered into Clarke's hair as she rocked her back and forth on the cold sidewalk. Clarke reached up and cradled Lexa's face in her hands, but quickly pulled away again. She pulled her gloves off, tossing them onto the ground beside her. She needed to feel her. Feel her wife. Feel that she was there. That she was alive and breathing.

"Lexa?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. 

"Yeah," Lexa choked out, nodding and fighting the tears that were trying to escape her own eyes. Those eyes. So green and so beautiful. Clarke didn't think she'd ever see them again. Didn't think... 

She pushed forward and pressed her lips against Lexa's. 

She didn't think she'd ever get to kiss those lips again. But they were here. They were so, so soft. She was kissing her wife. The love of her life. Her son's mother. Lexa, her...

A tugging on her arm pulled her away from kissing Lexa. 

"Mommy, why you kissing this lady?" He was eyeing Lexa suspiciously. "Momma wouldn't like that." 

Clarke chuckled, amused that their son was just now acting suspicious of a person he had never met. Well, not in person. 

Clarke stood, helping Lexa to her feet when she saw her wince while trying to push to her feet. Then she bent down and pulled Aden into her arms, resting him on her hip. He wrapped his arms around her neck and leant his head on her shoulder. 

"Aden, love. I want you to meet someone. This is your momma, Aden. Lexa, meet your son." The tears were still falling, but she felt like her smile was going to spit her face open. Her cheeks hurt from the strain of smiling so much after barely grinning for the last year. 

Aden lifted his head and looked Lexa up and down, taking in her dress uniforms. Her bag was resting against the other side of the fence. 

Lexa stared at Aden in wonder, her hands raising as if to touch him, but she held herself back. Clarke watched as worry crept into Lexa's gaze. 

"Aden, do remember what you said you'd do when momma got home?" Clarke prompted. Aden nodded, and Lexa was barely able to react quickly enough as Aden launched himself out of Clarke's arms and into Lexa's. 

Lexa wound her arms around Aden, holding him to her tightly. She wasn't able to hold back the tears as they welled over and fell down her cheeks. God. Those cheeks. Hollowed out and worn. She looked so frail and so tired. 

But she clung to Aden like a lifeline. She breathed in his scent as he buried his face in her neck. 

"Momma?" Aden asked, lifting his head and looking into Lexa's eyes. He reached up and put his wet mittens against Lexa's cheeks, examining her face intently. "You're my momma," he said with conviction. 

"You're my son," Lexa said with equal conviction, though her voice cracked with emotion. 

Clarke watched on, eager to hold onto her wife but so, so in love with the scene in front of her. 

Lexa looked up at her over Aden's head, her eyes watery with even more unshed tears. 

"You're my family," she said, her eyes firmly on Clarke. Clarke took one step to get to her family and wrapped her arms around them both. 

Tomorrow, she'd call her mom and her friends. She'd let everyone know that Lexa was home. They'd invite everyone over. They'd talk and Lexa would explain what happened. She'd tell Clarke what she went through. They'd hold each other and cry over the time they spent apart. But for now... for now...

For now, Lexa was alive. Lexa was home. 

And Clarke loved her so, so much.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr @musiclurv !


End file.
